Municipal Water Leader June 2016

Volume 2 Issue 6

June 2016

Securing a Diverse and Reliable Water Supply: A Discussion With Tacoma Water’s Linda McCrea

Local Solutions

By Kris Polly

T

his issue of Municipal Water Leader has a variety of articles about water systems and projects in Washington State, California, Hawaii, and Nebraska. While the locations are diverse, their respective narratives are very similar: local people working together to solve their own problems.

Linda McCrea of Tacoma Water is an impressive individual. She does a wonderful job explaining the history and accomplishments of her agency. Her selfdescription of being “born and raised at Tacoma Water” is a prime example of how people in the water business view their work as so much more than a job. When asked about her thoughts on the role of the federal government, her response mirrored what I have heard from other top municipal water managers. “Like many, I strongly believe that water is a local issue. People are very proud and protective of their water supply and the decisions made about their water resources. I think the most effective role for the federal government in water supply is to help utilities with sustainable infrastructure financing.”

The Cascade Water Alliance is a great story about cities and water districts working together to secure reliable water supplies. The alliance’s creation of the Water Forum to formally consider potential threats is a helpful example for others to follow. Thomas Wagoner, general manager of Lake Hemet Municipal

Water District in California, discusses the many challenges his district has overcome. The building of the Hemet Dam using cement imported from Belgium and delivered to the building site by mule train is a tremendous story of western grit and determination. Glenn Johnson’s article on Antelope Valley Project for downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, is a tremendous example of local cooperation to plan, develop, and build a multipurpose flood control project. Equally remarkable to the project’s success is the fact that the government entity created to implement the project was dissolved after the project was completed. Hawaii State Representative Ryan Yamane discusses his state legislative efforts to evaluate, protect, and sustain potable water supplies. Finally, the Metropolitan Water District and the Desert Water Agency share their efforts to work with and educate the public through their respective Solar Cup boat competition and local television public service messages.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of Municipal Water Leader magazine and find these articles of local solutions helpful to your efforts.

Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader and Irrigation Leader magazines. He is also president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations, marketing, and publishing company he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies.

He may be contacted at Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com.

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(703) 517-3962 or Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com 2

Municipal Water Leader

C O N T E N T S

JUNE 2016

2 Local Solutions

VOLUME 2 ISSUE 6 Municipal Water Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by Water Strategies LLC 4 E Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Valentina Valenta, Writer Robin Pursley, Graphic Designer Capital Copyediting LLC, Copyeditor SUBMISSIONS: Municipal Water Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved.

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Copyright 2016 Water Strategies LLC. Municipal Water Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources and water industry professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Municipal Water Leader, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Municipal Water Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Municipal Water Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

Cover Photo: Tacoma Water’s Superintendent Linda McCrea at the Green River, which is the utility’s primary water source.

Municipal Water Leader

By Kris Polly

4 Securing a Diverse and Reliable Water Supply: A Discussion With Tacoma Water's Linda McCrea

12 How Water Supply Turmoil Led the

Central Puget Sound Water Supply Forum to Plan for Tomorrow Today

MANAGER PROFILE

18 Diverse in Nature, United in Purpose: A Discussion With Thomas Wagoner, Lake Hemet Municipal Water District

FLOOD CONTROL

24 The Antelope Valley Project

By Glenn Johnson

LEGISLATIVE PROFILE

28 Water Resources Sustainability in the

Paradise of the Pacific: A Conversation With Hawaii State Representative Ryan I. Yamane

PUBLIC OUTREACH

32 Solar Cup: Metropolitan Water District

Uses Sunshine and Water to Grow Future Engineers and Water Resources Managers

By Rebecca Kimitch

34 On the Air With the Desert Water Agency 3

Securing a Diverse and Reliable Water Supply: A Discussion With Tacoma Water’s Linda McCrea

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inda McCrea was named superintendent and chief operating officer of Tacoma Water in 2010.

She has been with Tacoma Water since 1980, serving as deputy superintendent since 2006 and as the water distribution manager for 13 years before that. Ms. McCrea represents the Pacific Northwest Section on the national American Water Works Association Water Utility Council, is co-chair of the Utility Management Committee for the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, and is a member of the Focus Area Council for the Water Research Foundation.

Tacoma Water operates and maintains one of the nation’s oldest municipally owned water systems. Its service area covers 150 square miles and includes service to all or portions of seven cities and two counties. The plant value of Tacoma’s system has increased from around $100 million in 1980, when Ms. McCrea began working at Tacoma Water, to over $1 billion today. The system includes over 1,200 miles of water distribution mains and 150 miles of transmission lines. The utility serves 93,530 residential customers and 6,395 commercial/industrial customers. Tacoma Water provides retail service to approximately 300,000 individuals, along with wholesale and partner service to 17 adjacent utilities.

Tacoma Water is a member agency of the Water Supply Forum, a partnership composed of representatives of public water systems and local governments in Washington’s central Puget Sound region.

The forum promotes the reliable delivery of safe, clean water throughout the area. It addresses current and future water supply issues, including supply system resiliency, planning, policy and regulation, and environmental stewardship.

Municipal Water Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, spoke with Linda McCrea about Tacoma Water’s history, its successful water management strategy and diverse supply portfolio, and the role of the utility in growing the community’s economy.

Kris Polly: What’s your experience and training, and why did you accept the role as head of Tacoma Water?

Linda McCrea: I often tell people that I was born and raised at Tacoma Water, since I’ve spent my entire professional career with the utility. I graduated from the University of Washington with a civil engineering degree, and my first job out of college was working in the distribution section of Tacoma Water. Surprisingly, I was the first female engineer hired by the utility. I am proud to say that we now have a number of talented female engineers throughout our organization.

In college, civil engineering appealed to me because it was a field of engineering that seemed to include working with people as much as machines or equipment. Additionally, 4

working in the public sector was common with civil engineering, and that was what I was interested in. I care a lot about our community and the people who work in the utility. Over the years, I have seen a lot of growth in the community and our organization, and my goal has always been to contribute as much as I can to both of them.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your sources of water, including surface and groundwater.

Linda McCrea: Tacoma Water is the second-largest water provider in the state of Washington. We have been a public water system since the citizens of Tacoma voted in 1893 to acquire the private water and power utility serving the city. Initially, the system’s water source was a series of wells and a lake located south of town. One of the reasons the city’s citizens voted to buy the utility was poor water quality; people were getting sick from drinking the water.

With ownership of the water system, the city sought to improve the source of supply and ultimately decided to tap a river supply in the Cascade Mountains, about 35 miles east of Tacoma.

In 2013, we celebrated 100 years of high-quality, reliable supply from the Green River. We also retained the original groundwater supply and expanded it substantially over time. The area grew considerably after World War II, and although we acquired adjacent systems through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, it was clear that increasing demand would require new supply. Tacoma was able to obtain additional water rights on the Green River and, in partnership with three adjacent utilities, led the development of our Second Supply Project. This project was completed in 2005 after more than 30 years of planning, negotiations (tribes, environmental interests, federal/state agencies, etc.), design, Municipal Water Leader

and construction. The project successfully developed a second supply line on a completely independent route to bring additional supply into the system. The project also included storage upstream behind the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Howard Hanson Dam. Thanks to the long-range planning and wise investments of both current and past generations of community and utility leaders, Tacoma Water and the region have a diverse, reliable water supply to meet the needs of growth and development today and long into the future. On an average day, our available water supplies are double our average day demands. We are also well positioned to navigate the potential changes ahead, such as supply availability related to climate change. Importantly, our groundwater will become increasingly more valuable, as it is likely less susceptible to the effects of climate change, a fact that has recently been confirmed by our regional Water Supply Forum resiliency study.

Kris Polly: Does Tacoma Water have an aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) program?

Linda McCrea: We do not currently have ASR. Initially, with the development of our Second Supply Project, we explored using our South Tacoma aquifer for ASR but ultimately determined that it was not feasible. There is, though, a proposed ASR project in the region that will be launched if and when there is a new supply that could be developed to address that need. We are fortunate here to have a regional view of supply and demand, and we have not developed new large supply projects as long as we are in a surplus situation. With the decline in demands we have all experienced through conservation and loss of heavy industry, we anticipate not needing to develop new supplies for the foreseeable future. However, new supply projects, such as ASR, are included in our long-term water management strategy.

Until recently, we were one of the few remaining large public unfiltered surface water sources in the country. As of May 2015, though, we are a filtered supply and in compliance with regulations requiring treatment for cryptosporidium. In addition to disinfection, ozone control, and corrosion control that have all been in place for a number of years, we now have one more level of safety for everyone who drinks our water.

Filtration also provided greater access to the Green River year round, which has not always been the case because in the past, sediment and debris in the river during stormy periods required us to turn to groundwater to meet our needs.

The decision to filter rather than add UV treatment involved extensive public outreach to study, consider, and debate the alternatives throughout the communities we serve.

Although the UV option was estimated to cost one-third of the price of filtration, the community strongly supported the more expensive option to achieve a longer-term, more comprehensive treatment solution.

We started the filtration project in 2012 and brought it online at the end of 2014. That was a significant milestone for Tacoma Water. It was the largest project we have undertaken.

The project estimate was $215 million. For a number of reasons, including the use of an alternative design-build approach that brought the contractor onto the team when the project was at 30 percent design, a top-notch project, team and effective decisionmaking, this project was delivered and put into service on schedule and $30 million under budget.

Kris Polly: In many of our nation’s cities, there’s been a lot of concern lately about the safety and quality of drinking water. These concerns have been heightened by situations like

Kris Polly: Please tell us about drinking water treatment in Tacoma.

Linda McCrea: As I mentioned, our primary supply is from the Green River, a high-quality, clean mountain water supply. We have a 231‑square-mile closed watershed that feeds the river. We own roughly 11 percent of the land in the watershed, primarily along the river and the tributaries.

We have agreements with the various landowners in the watershed that allow us to patrol and maintain control over those properties in addition to our own. We do not face some of the problems that other systems do, because we do not have cities or wastewater treatment plants upstream of our intake. We start with a very clean source.

Municipal Water Leader

Tacoma Water Headworks Dam on the Green River.

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the one in Flint, Michigan. Could you please tell us about your efforts to test water and assure your customers that the drinking water is safe?

Linda McCrea: As a result of the Flint situation, we decided to take a look at lead exposure in our system. We have an old water system, and some pipes date back to the 1800s.

We knew that we did not have any full lead service lines, but we were aware that we had lead goosenecks [short segments of lead pipe that connect the water mains to galvanized service lines]. Our records did not indicate where the goosenecks were, but we have been finding them over the past couple decades as we have been replacing old service lines. In the interest of determining whether we could identify a lead gooseneck on a service line through sampling rather than digging up the line, we collected a series of samples on four services we suspected might have goosenecks. The customers were isolated from those services prior to the testing. The tests, which were taken at the meter setters, showed lead levels in the hundreds of parts per billion (ppb), which exceeds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 ppb.

We shared our lead testing results with the public and let the public know that we would communicate with it as we worked to understand what was causing the high lead results and to determine what actions we would need to take to ensure that our water is safe for all our customers. The public engagement on this issue helped our customers realize that we strive to be completely transparent, even if we are delivering bad news.

Over the course of a month, we tested hundreds of water quality samples from customers’ homes and meters, providing the data to the media and the public to inform them of our efforts and results. At the conclusion of our testing, we learned that our initial high lead results were due to the manipulation of the brass valve on the meter setter, which is the only location where we received high lead results in follow-up testing. The hundreds of samples taken from our customers’ taps all came back well below the action level, confirming the effectiveness of our corrosion control treatment. No sample from inside a home showed more than 4 ppb, and in many cases, samples showed 0 ppb. Our corrosion control was scrutinized, and we had a great outcome. We also developed an even stronger relationship with our customers, because we engaged them every step of the way.

Kris Polly: Resiliency seems to be a buzzword in the water resources industry today. Please tell us how resiliency factors into your water management strategy.

Linda McCrea: The major utilities in the central Puget Sound area have worked together for years under a group called the Water Supply Forum. It includes Everett, Seattle, 6

Tacoma, and the Cascade Water Alliance, which represents many suburban communities in the region. We have studied supply availability and demand projections to make sure we will continue to be well positioned to meet our needs regionally well into the future.

In recent years, with demand declining, the forum decided to focus on water supply resiliency across the region. We identified and evaluated four risk areas: water quality, seismic issues, drought, and climate change. We paired staff teams from each of our agencies with consultants to study the effect on water supply for each of us within the risk areas, develop mitigation alternatives to reduce vulnerability, and improve postevent service restoration. We have just completed the first phase of that study. This effort has had the benefit of bringing together staff from all our agencies to share what we are doing within each of our individual utilities and use that to leverage a broader plan to develop and advocate for investments and solutions that will shore up our service reliability regionally in the face of a wide range of significant potential threats. In phase 2, we plan to evaluate which alternative management strategies we should advance to help improve resiliency.

Kris Polly: Sustainability is obviously a large concern today, and climate change has heightened that concern. How are you addressing a sustainable water supply in Tacoma? How does supporting economic growth figure into that, and how do you foresee adjusting your portfolio of sources (surface and groundwater) to ensure there is a sustainable water supply in the future?

Linda McCrea: Since we have a supply portfolio that well exceeds our current demands, our forecasts show we are well positioned to support economic development and growth in our area for the next 50 years. Typically, 95 percent of our supply comes from the Green River. In drought years, though, we rely heavily on our groundwater, as was the case last year.

In years of reduced snow pack or limited spring or fall rains, as may be the case with climate change, we may need to develop more of the groundwater rights we have in order to meet high summer peaking demands. The primary concern in drought years is supporting minimum river flows needed to protect salmon as they come upstream to spawn. We currently capture excess spring runoff in storage behind the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dam upstream of our facilities. That stored water is used and managed collaboratively to both meet our drinking water needs and protect fish flows.

For Tacoma Water, managing the Green River involves a partnership between federal, state, and local agencies; the Muckleshoot Tribe; and nongovernment organizations. The group, called the Green River Flow Management Committee, makes decisions about water flow, storage, and release. Last year, the river was lower than we have seen it before. With the Municipal Water Leader

forecast showing that fall rains would not hit until December or later, we protected our stored water for fall use by asking our customers to reduce lawn watering; we also increased our stored water by pumping water into the reservoir from a lake higher up in the watershed. We ultimately did not need that water for fall fish flows because the rains returned in October.

Tacoma’s watershed is a low-lying watershed, and although snow pack does play an important role, we are not as vulnerable to loss of snow pack as other systems. In the face of climate change and reduced snowpack, we anticipate the value of storage and groundwater will be even more important to ensuring long-term sustainability of water supply and quality of life for our communities.

Kris Polly: What’s your biggest water supply challenge in Tacoma, and how are you meeting it?

our summer demands and the other half is donated to the resource agencies for fish flows.

In the Pacific Northwest, we put high value on the amazing natural resources we have. Protection of those natural resources is an obligation and commitment we embrace. Tacoma Water’s environmental programs, which include significant investments in wildlife and fish habitat, forest management, and other activities, are evidence of this strong commitment.

Kris Polly: The U.S. Government Accountability Office did a study in 2003 that surveyed state and local governments about the role the federal government ought to play in water supply. That study was updated a few years ago.

What do you believe the federal roles ought to be?

Linda McCrea: Water supply challenges in this region are strongly tied to fish, instream flows, and other natural resources issues. While we successfully negotiated 20,000 acrefeet of additional storage behind the Army Corps’ Howard Hanson Dam, we have not completed the project because of the required construction of downstream fish passage. It has been challenging to come up with a successful design to provide for downstream fish passage on a flood control dam where the water levels vary dramatically. A number of issues have complicated the completion of this project, which should have been completed in 2005 when Tacoma Water completed the upstream fish passage project. The new estimate for completion of the downstream fish passage is the mid-2020s. Fortunately, we have reached an agreement with the Army Corps, the Muckleshoot Tribe, and resource agencies on storage of the water in the interim. Until fish passage is completed and the upper watershed is open for salmon spawning, half the stored water is available for meeting

Water utility workers Tamar Jackson and Kimberly Edwards remove a lead gooseneck and replace a customer’s service in spring 2016.

Headworks pipeline.

Municipal Water Leader

7

Linda McCrea: Like many, I strongly believe that water is a local issue. People are very proud and protective of their water supply and the decisions made about their water resources. I think the most effective role for the federal government in water supply is to help utilities with sustainable infrastructure financing. Our congressional delegation in Washington, DC, has been very supportive of advancing legislation and programs that would provide low-interest loans to help communities solve their own problems. Building new infrastructure is often very expensive, and being able to secure a loan to help spread the cost of the project over many years may be the only way that utilities can repair and rehabilitate their systems.

Kris Polly: How do you work with your customers or ratepayers in developing and carrying out a strategic water supply?

Linda McCrea: In the 1970s and 1980s, our area experienced a lot of growth. Utilities throughout the region were also experiencing similar population increases. The planning for Tacoma Water’s Second Supply Project was well underway at that point, and it was a great opportunity for us to begin thinking about water management in a more regional way. The Second Supply Project was costly, and the growing body of environmental requirements posed many challenges.

Tacoma Water realized that our community did not need all the water that could be developed by the project, so we reached out to three neighboring utilities with supply concerns.

They agreed to form a partnership to complete the project.

We worked with our ratepayers and policymakers to create that partnership, in which Tacoma would own and operate the project but each partner, including Tacoma, would have its share of the water. The other utilities agreed to pay their share of the costs and take on their share of the risk in exchange for accessing the water.

Our partnership with neighboring utilities is a unique model that has stood the test of time and continues to thrive today. The public outreach and decision process on our water treatment project included the ratepayers and policymakers of our partners, too; we needed to gain their input and support before making a decision, because the cost for the filtration plant was also shared with them.

Kris Polly: Please discuss the roles of technology and innovation in municipal water supply. What is Tacoma doing to apply new ideas?

Linda McCrea: Today, we are all using technology to a great degree in our personal lives. The role of technology in our lives is changing our expectations, how we communicate, and how we make decisions. The public now expects that 8

utilities will make use of new technologies. We have not been able to move as quickly as our customers might like, but we have come a long way in deploying technology in our business and operation over my time in the industry.

As we deploy technology in our utilities, we have to do more than just install it and use it to run the business the way it has always been run. We are developing a smart water vision that includes using new technologies to inform our decisionmaking and improve the way we do business with our customers. It is not easy to make decisions about replacing and operating water infrastructure. The challenge with water is that a lot of our infrastructure is underground, which means it is out of sight, out of mind. Going forward, I believe new technologies will allow us to (1) clearly identify what is going on inside our entire system, (2) make better decisions about our capital improvement and investment plans, and (3) understand the risks associated with various maintenance strategies. This transformation will also help us educate our ratepayers about their water delivery system and engage more interactively with them.

Kris Polly: Please reflect on your role as a water utility executive. How is that role changing, and what skills and training will the water utility executive of tomorrow need?

Linda McCrea: I think it all comes down to the people we serve. As I look back on my time at Tacoma Water, I can see how much our utility and community have transformed, and technology will further accelerate the changes. We need to be able to anticipate what our business could be and is expected to be. We are all going to experience a culture change in the way we operate in the future. Utilities will need to learn new technical skills and implement new decisionmaking models.

As a utility leader, I believe that we must clearly communicate our vision for the future to our customers, stakeholders, policymakers, and employees. Utility leaders must also have a strategic management plan in place to move their organizations forward. The utility of tomorrow cannot grow and adapt to meet its community’s needs unless it is able to successfully undergo change.

I work in a great industry. The people involved in the drinking water business are very good people. They take great pride in providing a public service that is vital to the health and economic growth of our communities. When there is a crisis or emergency, everyone in the industry comes together to effectively work on solutions. We all learned a lot from Flint. Utilities throughout the country must continue to come together to share their expertise and work to ensure that we do not experience a similar issue in any of our other communities.

I believe that the spirit of cooperation and collaboration is a big part of the DNA of people who work in drinking water.

Municipal Water Leader

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How Water Supply Turmoil Led the Central Puget Sound Water Supply Forum to Plan for Tomorrow Today

I

n the late 1970s and early 1980s, the suburban communities outside of Seattle were growing tremendously and cities all over the country, including Seattle, were experiencing flight to the suburbs. There was a growing perception that the suburbs offered a much nicer quality of life – families could buy bigger homes, the schools were less crowded, and there was a lot of recreation.

As the suburbs grew, community leaders knew they needed water to help drive their growth and meet demand.

Seattle had always been the water provider for all communities in the area. During the 1980s, it appeared that demand would continue to increase. To prepare for that increase, Seattle signed new water contracts with the surrounding communities. While some had independent supplies and some wouldn’t need more water, no one had enough without Seattle’s supply. So all of the communities agreed to sign the contracts. However, a group of cities and water districts decided they were going to start a process to evaluate if there was a better way to have water delivered to their areas.

For almost a century, Seattle had been making all of the decisions regarding water supply and delivery for itself and for all its customers – the surrounding communities.

The city set wholesale rates. If a community receiving the water was growing, they were being charged more under the new contract. As a result, the 27 purveyors got together and considered creation of a single entity to interface with Seattle – the entity’s purpose was to negotiate on behalf of all member purveyors. It took several years to form the new entity.

Cascade Water Alliance was officially formed in April 1999. Initially, Cascade represented 11 utilities (seven cities and four water districts). The other purveyors chose to sign new contracts with Seattle. Chuck Clarke, Cascade’s Chief Executive Officer stated, “Those utilities wanted a voice and a vote concerning their water supply, rates, and how their water was delivered.” Cascade began its efforts by negotiating contracts with Seattle Public Utilities and Tacoma Water for purchasing water until a new water supply could be developed. This would be an effort with many twists and turns.

Cascade currently consists of five cities and two water districts, comprising much of the east side of King County in the Seattle area, serving about 350,000 people and 20,000 businesses.

Mt. Rainier and Lake Tapps.

12

Municipal Water Leader

The Role of Puget Sound Energy in the Region’s New Water Supply

The Puget Sound area is extremely water rich, however there is limited storage. Building water infrastructure is often costly, time consuming, and faces significant political challenges. Cascade began looking for a new water source, and it would turn out that there was a project in the area that had a lot of potential and would soon become available to Cascade.

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) had been operating a hydroelectric project south of Seattle and east of Tacoma in a very rural area since 1911. The project consisted of a diversion from the White River, a series of flumes, pipes, and basins. PSE constructed a series of dikes around four small lakes to create Lake Tapps Reservoir. Water from the Reservoir flowed down to a powerhouse where it produced hydroelectric power for the area. That project was operated in the region for over 90 years.

In the 1980s, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decided to license that project.

The licensing process was onerous and the license issued in 1997 was appealed. Following a stay of the license conditions and an unprecedented cooperative effort to “Save Lake Tapps,” in 2003 it became clear to PSE that it would prove to be too costly to continue to operate the project, and power production was terminated in 2004. Mr. Clarke stated, “PSE was looking around for something to do with its system, Cascade was looking around for new municipal water supply, and the community was trying to save the lake. After much collaboration with the community, including the tribes, state regulatory agencies, homeowners around the lake and nearby cities, Cascade purchased the entire White River Lake Tapps Project.” After purchasing the project, Cascade worked to procure state water rights. Cascade worked with the tribes to create a plan to support their fisheries and habitat restoration, and ensure instream flows. Cascade also worked with the homeowners to ensure that they would have a full lake during the summer recreational season. “We incorporated the outcome of all of these negotiations into our State Water Rights, and we got everybody to the table at the right time,” said Mr. Clarke.

Actual water demand in the region had been flat or declining since about 2003. Mr. Clarke explained, “Washington State, especially the Central Puget Sound region has a tremendous conservation ethic.

People are using less water for a variety of reasons.

Cascade sat down with two of its regional partners, Seattle Public Utilities and Tacoma Water and agreed to purchase water from them for as long as feasible before beginning to build out Lake Tapps. It was less

Municipal Water Leader

Chuck Clarke, Chief Executive Officer of Cascade Water Alliance.

costly and easier to buy water from existing sources and provided Seattle and Tacoma with funds that would help pay for needed infrastructure. It was a win-win for everyone involved.”

Cascade is a different kind of wholesale water utility.

It was not easily categorized and its status as a “watershed management partnership” meant very little in terms of utility authority. It began working to create a classification for itself and its members. Cascade had no bonding or eminent domain authority. Mr. Clarke explained, “There were a lot of things missing for Cascade that most utilities need to operate. We worked with about 30 or 40 entities across the State and came up with a new classification called the Joint Municipal Utilities Services Authority to create a municipal corporation for utilities that wanted to join together to provide essential public services like water. We kept a narrow focus. After much research and bringing a lot of people to the table, the legislature supported our plan to create this authority. The Joint Municipal Utilities Services Authority gave us the ability to do more intergovernmental projects and allows us to make our operations more effective.”

But Cascade was not alone in the region. Everett Water, Seattle Public Utilities, Tacoma Water, Cascade, and other utilities comprised the Central Puget Sound Water Supply Forum (the Forum), which had been meeting regularly for more than a decade to discuss water supply issues of mutual concern and potential challenges they might face. Then the region experienced a drought in 2014.

The four major regional water providers continued their work with the other participants in the Forum and continued 13

May 2014 Cascade Water Alliance 15th anniversary celebration – Panel (left to right): Jim Miller, city of Everett; Linda McCrea, Tacoma Water Superintendent; Ray Hoffman, Seattle Public Utilities Director; Chuck Clarke, Cascade Chief Executive Officer.

talking about what this particular drought scenario and other challenges would mean. While this drought was a short-term issue that was quickly resolved, utilities wondered what would happen if there was another short term emergency or a long term problem, such as an earthquake or ongoing drought. How could the organizations respond independently and together as a region?

Water Demand Decline Paves the Way for the Water Forum

Cascade celebrated its 15-year anniversary in May 2014.

Mr. Clarke said, “On the occasion of our anniversary, we put together some panels and workshops to discuss this very real issue, and we got great input and considerable interest from other utilities. It was very clear that we should all continue to work together to analyze potential emergencies and put a plan in place to manage them.

Seattle Public Utilities, headed by Ray Hoffman, led the effort and we all agreed that the Water Supply Forum would more formally look at potential threats to our water supply. Seattle Public Utilities studied climate change. Cascade studied drought. Tacoma Water studied water quality. Everett Public Works studied earthquakes.

We released the recommendations from our studies in 2016. Had we not bought Lake Tapps, and had the water demand in the region not declined, and had we not

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purchased water from Seattle and Tacoma, and had we not had the Forum, we wouldn’t all be sitting at the table together working on these regional issues.” Mr. Clarke continued, “Cascade has been able to do a lot of different things for our members and other utilities because we are not doing the traditional day to day activities that other utilities must perform. We have tremendous expertise in our staff and can work with others on critical interests…. and it’s worked incredibly well. It’s been a great model.”

In many ways, the purchase of Lake Tapps encouraged many in the region to rethink their traditional water planning, especially water sharing and emergency preparedness. The 2015 drought was yet another eye opener in the region about the importance of planning together. Mr. Clarke stated, “The region broke apart over water decades ago and now it has come back together again – politically, economically, and socially – over water.

Cascade certainly didn’t plan it this way, but the people at the table in the Forum, with their utility savvy and political will make regional planning and action happen in this region at this time. We will be prepared for whatever the future holds by working together. It has been pretty amazing to watch.”

Mr. Chuck Clarke is the Chief Executive Officer of Cascade Water Alliance. You can reach Mr. Clarke at (425) 453-0930 or cclarke@cascadewater.org.

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MANAGER PROFILE

Diverse in Nature, United in Purpose:

T

A Discussion With Thomas Wagoner, Lake Hemet Municipal Water District

homas Wagoner is the general manager of Lake Hemet Municipal Water District (LHMWD), a public, nonprofit agency in California that provides highquality potable water to residents of Hemet, San Jacinto, Garner Valley, and surrounding unincorporated areas. The district also maintains Lake Hemet as a clean and safe water reservoir and recreational facility.

Municipal Water Leader’s writer, Valentina Valenta, spoke with Mr. Wagoner about LHMWD’s unique history and role as a municipal water provider, the challenges of navigating a water district through unprecedented drought, its successes over the last decade, and how it plans to meet the demands of a growing and changing community.

Valentina Valenta: Please tell our readers about LHMWD. What is your service area and about how many homes and businesses do you serve?

Thomas Wagoner: LHMWD in southern California is nearly 130 years old. Originally named Lake Hemet Land and Water Company, it became a special district in 1955, assuming the new name of Lake Hemet Municipal Water District. The district’s service area comprises portions of the cities of Hemet and San Jacinto, and the unincorporated portions of Riverside County within its local jurisdiction, as well as a community (Pine Meadows/Garner Valley) in the area’s mountains south of Lake Hemet.

LHMWD has about 14,500 residential, commercial, and industrial water accounts. It also has about 11,840 sanitary sewer accounts. The

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District serves a population of about 50,000.

Additionally, the district maintains a historic agricultural tradition, providing water to 51 agricultural businesses— predominantly citrus groves (2,306 acres) and seasonal crops.

“Lake Hemet Land and Water Company succeeded in providing much of the water needed to nourish and develop the San Jacinto Valley during the first half of the 20th century. However, a severe drought during the late 1940s and 1950s, combined with population growth and the need for significant infrastructure upgrades, created a combination of crises that led to the sale of the company’s assets and to the formation of a municipal utility.”

“The whole system had reached the point where it needed increasing amounts of maintenance,” recalled Walter Bothner, a former LHMWD board member (1968–1994) and a retired apricot farmer, whose family came to the valley in 1914. The drought also prompted many valley residents to call for the importation of Colorado River water to supplement local supplies.

A new utility, Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD), was created in 1950 specifically for this purpose.

LHMWD Board of Directors: Frank D. Gorman—President, Division 2 Larry Minor—Vice President, Division 4 Todd A. Foutz—Secretary/Treasurer, Division 3 Rick Hoffmann—Director, Division 5 Cornelius T. Schouten—Director, Division 1

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But while EMWD succeeded in bringing much-needed water to western Riverside County by tapping into the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s distribution system, many residents of Hemet and San Jacinto did not want to surrender control of their water resources to outsiders. “They were intensely local,” Mr. Bothner said, “and many were in favor of keeping control of the water supply for the district in local hands.”

LHMWD was formed in 1955 after a successful bond initiative raised sufficient funds to purchase the assets of the Lake Hemet Water Company. At that time, the district had approximately 1,800 customers and a 23-square-mile service area.

• Fortune Favors the Brave, A History of the Lake Hemet Water Company, by Mary E. Whitney • Valley, River and Mountain, by Mary E. Whitney Valentina Valenta: Tell us about yourself. What is your background, and how did you become general manager at LHMWD? Why did you seek the job?

Thomas Wagoner: I am a Hemet native, having grown up attending the local school system, including a local junior college. I completed a bachelor of arts degree in business administration in nearby Riverside, California. My background includes work at local engineering firms as a land surveyor, which also provided me the opportunity to acquire drafting and design skills. I was able to translate that background into the water industry when I was hired

by EMWD as an engineering aide. That opportunity allowed me to learn and grow in my understanding of the complexities of water and its vital role in maintaining healthy and thriving communities. After my start as an engineering aide, I was promoted to several jobs at EMWD, with my final position there as a construction administrator of large, complex public works facilities.

I consider my time at EMWD to be as valuable as my formal education, because EMWD is one of the leading agencies in the California water industry.

I came to LHMWD as its assistant general manager, and I served in that role for 10 years. During that time, the district focused on creating a master plan for facility replacement because numerous water distribution pipelines in our system were up to a century old. The major project I managed during that time was the acquisition of a lowinterest California Department of Water Resources loan for the replacement of about 40,000 feet of pipe in the district’s water distribution system. I became the district’s general manager in 2005 and have served in that capacity since then.

Valentina Valenta: I understand that LHMWD came into being about the same time as EMWD because the Municipal Water Leader

LHMWD General Manager Thomas Wagoner.

residents in the area wanted to maintain an independent water supply. Can you tell us about this history?

Thomas Wagoner: LHMWD’s strong, independent nature comes from its historic past. The construction of the dam that formed Lake Hemet was completed in 1895, and it reportedly held the distinction of being the highest masonry dam in the world until 1911, when Roosevelt Dam in Arizona was completed. Because of this background and due to the independent nature of area farmers and ranchers, staying independent was believed to be in the constituents’ best interests because independence allowed them to remain in control of their own destiny.

Today, LHMWD continues this tradition of independence while recognizing the need for cooperation with area city water departments and with EMWD, which is also one of Metropolitan’s member agencies.

Valentina Valenta: What is the source of LHMWD’s water supplies? How much comes from surface water and how much from groundwater?

Thomas Wagoner: The district has three main water sources: Lake Hemet water, surface water, and groundwater.

The district also has connections to EMWD’s systems, whereby both domestic and raw water may be purchased.

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LHMWD’s public outreach consists of various methodologies: • water bill-stuffer notices • public information bits on local radio stations • public hearings that are California Proposition 218– compliant for rate or fee increases • contact with business and residential customers via its customer service department, which can schedule individual water audits • distribution of an annual consumer confidence report

In normal rainfall years, LHMWD receives about 85 percent of its domestic water supply from groundwater wells and purchases about 15 percent of its supply from EMWD. Additionally, most agricultural water comes from lake releases and surface water supplies. However, during the recent four-year drought cycle, the district has relied more on purchased domestic and raw water to meet its demands than in typical years.

Valentina Valenta: Lake Hemet is depicted as having colorful history of construction—while perhaps small by today’s standards, it was a major feat of engineering and construction in its day. Please tell us about Lake Hemet and its role in the district’s water supply.

Thomas Wagoner: The Lake Hemet Dam truly is a marvelous demonstration of determination, ingenuity, and contemporary state-of-the-art construction. It was built using onsite materials, with the exceptions being cement and other typical waterworks materials. The Lake Hemet Land & Water Company imported 20,000 barrels of Belgium cement, which was shipped from Antwerp to San Diego, California, and transported by rail to nearby San Jacinto. From there, mule trains delivered the cement to the construction site via a steep mountain trail that often exceeded grades of 18 percent, transporting the cement from a valley floor elevation of about 1,580 feet above mean sea level to an elevation of nearly 4,337 feet above mean sea level. All the lumber needed for the dam’s construction was milled onsite, and the large granite block material was quarried on location as well. These massive granite pieces were put in place and cemented via a cableand-pulley system powered by large steam engines that moved the cables back and forth over the construction site and lowered the granite blocks into place.

radar. Scientists are indicating that we will see a cycle of average or above average rainfall only in three years per decade. This new climate cycle pushes water agencies to store surplus water in existing and new reservoirs, as well as recharge water in locations with suitable underground aquifers, during the theoretical three years of abundant water supply.

Locally, via the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians, the cities of Hemet and San Jacinto, EMWD, and LHMWD are cooperating in the long-term importation and recharge of our underground water aquifers. Currently, these recharge efforts are taking advantage of surplus water from Northern California that is available due to the heavy winter rains and resulting snowmelt of 2015–2016. LHMWD is also cooperating with the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District (RCFCWCD) to deepen one of its storm water retention basins to capture local storm water. LHMWD is coordinating with RCFCWCD in the development of another storm water/imported water recharge facility located within our service area as well. We are pursuing these cooperative water recharge investments in our region to take advantage of times during which exceptional amounts of water are available, whether from Northern California or from locally occurring stormwater events.

Valentina Valenta: How important is water reuse in LHMWD’s water strategy?

Thomas Wagoner: Although LHMWD provides sewage collection in its service area, it does not operate its own waste water treatment facility. Local wastewater is conveyed to EMWD, where it is converted to highquality tertiary treated water. Some local farming interests purchase this water from EMWD; however, the

Valentina Valenta: Today, water discussions often turn to sustainability and climate change. How much do these phenomena matter to LHMWD and how are you planning to cope with them as you move forward?

Thomas Wagoner: With the seemingly ever-present effects of drought in our region, the cyclical nature of the climate must be a priority on all water purveyors’ 20

Construction crew Lake Hemet Dam. Man circled believed to be Edward L. Mayberry, co-founder Lake Hemet Land and Water Company.

Municipal Water Leader

A wealth of information is available to the public via LHMWD’s website at https://www.lhmwd.org/, including • independent annual audits • approved annual budgets • monthly board agendas and minutes for board of directors meetings • advertisement of construction and maintenance projects • public records request forms • the district’s Urban Water Management Plan • water and sewer design and engineering criteria • a district-wide water consumption chart during the last drought cycle

infrastructure for the delivery of recycled water to our service area has not been constructed, and thus, water recycling does not directly benefit our Districtat this time.

I believe that over time the need to use recycled water will move to the forefront of our strategy due to the scarcity of water throughout the state. One challenge for agricultural use of recycled water is that long-term use for citrus can damage the tree’s root systems, which could undermine its use for our citrus agricultural customers.

Valentina Valenta: What are the challenges you see on the horizon for LHMWD, and how will you meet them?

Thomas Wagoner: LHMWD has historically and primarily been an agricultural district, but since the early 1960s, it has increasingly served more and more residential and business customers. Aging citrus groves have begun to show the effects and threats of greening disease and other pests. Some farmers have already begun converting some of their citrus groves to permanent alternate crops, such as walnuts. The long-term delivery of economical water to farmers is and will continue to be a significant challenge to the district. Also, the district’s service area is not built out relative to residential development. Water for future

residential growth will also be a considerable challenge for our district.

However, statewide efforts to increase conscientiousness about water conservation may prove to be the greatest challenge in our future. California Governor Jerry Brown has issued several emergency declarations during the term of the current drought. In recent years, all water districts throughout the state were assigned a water conservation percentage based on their 2013 water consumption.

LHMWD was assigned a conservation percentage of 26 percent, which our residential customers helped the district to meet and exceed. Local famers and agricultural interests also worked with the district to lower their domestic water demands, which also contributed to our water conservation efforts.

For the long term, if the current drought turns into a 10-year or longer cycle, the district may have considerable difficulty in meeting its water demands. Under that scenario, significant water conservation measures may be necessary to provide the very basic water needs of our community. Let’s hope that this does not occur and that abundant rain will again return to Southern California.

Lake Hemet Dam, February 2005.

LHMWD has a long record of accomplishments over the last 10 years: • 2006–Decommissioned the original LHMWD office building after 51 years of continual use and consolidated four separate operations to a single new corporate office, warehouse, shop, and annex facility.

• 2010–Sold $7 million in municipal bonds to finance the replacement of water distribution pipelines, service lines, and fire hydrants for a significant portion of its service area. This initial portion of district-wide improvements is part of the district’s $30 million water master plan.

• 2013–Participated in the settlement of a decades-old Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians lawsuit.

• 2013–Participated in and became a member of a local watermaster that is responsible for implementing the objectives of the Stipulated Judgment of the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indian’s lawsuit.

• 2014–Converted the district’s campground and lake facility operations to a contract recreation concessionaire.

• 2016–Completed its 5-year project to replace all water meters with new, automatic reading meters.

• 2016–Commenced with complete overhaul of the district’s computerized billing and accounting system.

• 2016–Applied for significant California grant funding for construction projects, such as a co-venture water recharge project with the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.

• 2016–Applied for a planning grant from California Proposition 1 to upgrade the district’s water treatment facility; results pending.

Municipal Water Leader

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Historic Lake Hemet Dam – A Vestige of the Past 1. Empty Lake Hemet during 1903 drought.

2. William F. Whittier, cofounder Lake Hemet Land and Water Company.

3. Cable rig for granite blocks.

4. Construction office Lake Hemet Dam. 22

5. Lake Hemet Land and Water Company around 1900.

6. Construction scaffolding Lake Hemet Dam. 7. Workers transporting cement.

Municipal Water Leader

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The Antelope Valley Project FLOOD CONTROL

a 12-foot by 12-foot underground box culvert built in 1918, that in 2005 had only the capacity to carry a five-year frequency flood event. A precipitation event that was any larger flooded overland through the city center.

In the late 1980s, the Army Corps investigated improving flood control along Antelope Creek.

After a reconnaissance study was conducted, it became clear that the community was not yet ready to go into the feasibility study phase of a flood control project. In 1993, the city of Lincoln, the University of Nebraska, and the LPSNRD, which had been trying to do Antelope Creek– related projects independently, came together to attempt to achieve all of their respective goals in one project.

Groundwater Colossus sculpture by James Tyler.

By Glenn Johnson The Antelope Valley Project (AVP) is a package of construction and rehabilitation projects in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, that have helped transform the city economically and aesthetically while providing much needed flood control and transportation enhancements.

Driven by the partnership between the city of Lincoln, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District (LPSNRD), and supported by the involvement of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, and other local entities, the AVP has sparked the redevelopment of the heart of Lincoln. The AVP became the biggest public works project in the history of the city of Lincoln.

PROJECT ORIGINS Antelope Creek drains 15 square miles of fully urbanized land through the center of Lincoln. The Army Corps of Engineers operates a 1960s-era flood control dam that controls the upper 7.5‑square-mile drainage area of Antelope Creek. Downstream drainage was uncontrolled and created a flood threat situation through the heart of the city, affecting 1,000 businesses and homes. The downstream drainage conveyance consisted of an open channel and 24

BOTTOM-UP PLANNING The project partners, with significant public input, worked to develop the plan for the AVP from 1995 to 2000. We investigated multiple iterations and alternatives, such as off-stream storage and the addition of more underground boxes. Without an opportunity for upstream storage, it became clear that a conveyance project would be necessary to handle the water coming down the channel.

The partners held 1,000 public meetings—that is not an exaggeration. In addition, a 65‑member citizen advisory group met every other week for that five-year planning period. It was truly a bottom-up planning process. Over the course of the planning process, the community made it clear that it wanted more out of the project than just flood control and transportation; it wanted open space, parks, views, and aesthetics. All of that became part of the overall project.

The final flood control design called for the rehabilitation of the existing culvert box and the construction of an open flood control channel parallel to the box; together, the flood control components would fully carry a 100-year flood flow, which translates to 8,000 cubic feet per second and reduces the size of the flood plain to the width of the open channel.

IMPLEMENTATION The project partners approved the AVP in 2000. To implement it, the three entities reached an interlocal agreement to create an administrative governmental entity, the Joint Antelope Valley Municipal Water Leader

KEY AVP COMPONENTS •

Removal of nearly 1,000 homes and businesses, 400 acres overall, and 50 acres of the University of Nebraska from the 100-year flood plain • Construction of a new waterway to convey the 100year flood waters ·• Construction of 6.2 miles of roadways to improve traffic flow in the central core and to and relieve congestion • Elimination of two at-grade railroad crossings currently utilized by over 70 freight and coal trains a day • 12 new or replacement bridges • Provision of new community services and mixed-use developments of former flood prone areas • Union Plaza • Creation of recreation and trail opportunities, including Jayne Snyder Trails Center and Fleming Fields • Development of projects such as Assurity Life Insurance headquarters, Turbine Flats, and several housing developments

Authority ( JAVA) to share information with the public and elected officials, complete final project design, secure public and private funding for the AVP, and construct the approved projects. A three-member board governed JAVA, with each partner appointing a staff member representative.

The Army Corps designed the flood control portion of the project, while a consulting team from Parsons Brinkerhoff (PB) designed the transportation and redevelopment portions of the AVP. PB had a team of consultants that designed all the roadways and bridges.

AVP construction started in 2003. The Army Corps awarded four different contracts for the phased flood control construction, and JAVA employed multiple contractors. Eight separate construction contracts covered

roadway construction.

From the perspective of the LPSNRD, the AVP’s logistical challenges revolved around the urban environment in which we were working. In the rightof-way acquisition, JAVA acquired, among multiple properties, a liquor store, a bar, a used-car dealer, and a skateboard shop. Needless to say, it was a right-of-way acquisition different from what LPSNRD was accustomed to. In addition, when you take a linear project through the heart of a city, and proceed to excavate 20 feet down to create a new waterway, underground utilities pose a significant impediment. Those utilities—sanitary sewers, fiber optics, and electric—required relocation.

Total AVP costs were $246 million. The flood control component cost $72 million, with the Army Corps covering 50 percent, the city of Lincoln covering 25 percent, and the LPSNRD covering 25 percent.

And while the university did not contribute financially, it provided very significant right of way and relocated some of its facilities to make way for the AVP. There were a lot of private dollars raised to create open space and recreational amenities. The private sector raised $10 million for Union Plaza and related park facilities.

MULTIPLE BENEFITS The overflow channel could have been a typical trapezoidal concrete-lined channel if it were only to be used for flood control. But, with community involvement, it became a vegetated, flatter-sloped channel, with three blocks of enhanced open space—park facilities, beautiful bridges, a bicycle and pedestrian trail, an amphitheater, and landscaping. It is now a public plaza used year round.

The trail links together six other trails that previously did not reach the center of the city.

As designed, the AVP reins in floods. In the summer

Union Plaza Park on Antelope Creek.

Municipal Water Leader

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of 2014, Lincoln experienced a rainfall event that filled the rehabbed culvert box and dumped into the overflow channel. Within 24 hours, the city received an aggregate of 9.5 inches of rain that came in three cycles of 3 inches, equivalent to a 50‑year storm. The channel’s design structure enabled water levels to peak and then flush out of the system without flooding or property damage, preventing an estimated $38 million in flood damages.

There is also a significant economic return for our investment. For every public dollar expended, it has been projected that the private sector will respond with at least $3 of private investment and redevelopment. In addition, it has been estimated that the AVP will produce over $745 million in benefits, including more than $63 million in time savings with the construction of railroad overpasses.

KEYS TO SUCCESS There were a few key elements that helped make the AVP a success. First, the fact that the roadway and flood control channel occupy a joint right of way eliminated the need for the acquisition of two different right-of-way corridors through the heart of the city. That reduced the overall project footprint and neighborhood impacts and also reduced legal and right-of-way costs.

There was also significant buy-in from the private sector. The first redevelopment project in the AVP was driven by Assurity Life Insurance, a local insurance company that operated out of three different buildings in different locations throughout the city. Assurity wanted to consolidate and sought real estate along the transformed waterway. It acquired the necessary properties without any assistance from the city and built a $56 million building

overlooking the new waterway. Assurity wanted to be there, and it created the initial spark for the development of the area.

Above all, the bottom-up planning process and a concerted effort by the project partners ensured community buy-in. Once the project was approved in 2000, there was very little opposition during implementation. The project moved forward successfully through four mayors, three university chancellors, multiple elected officials, and I won’t say how many football coaches. The creation of JAVA as a separate entity helped insulate AVP activities from political changes. You didn’t have to go through the annual budget crises—the funding was decided up front, and the JAVA partners committed to it at the beginning of the project.

THE AVP TODAY The transportation and flood control components of the AVP were completed in 2013. The community redevelopment component will continue on into the future.

The 6‑acre Union Plaza includes four water features, a festival space, new trail connection, artwork, a children’s play area, a scenic overlook, and an outdoor amphitheater.

With all of its goals accomplished, JAVA was officially dissolved by the three partners in July 2016.

Glenn Johnson is the general manager of the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District and served as the chairman of the Joint Antelope Valley Authority. You can reach Glenn at (402) 476‑2729 or gjohnson@lpsnrd.org.

Shared Corridor for flood control and transportation.

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LEGISLATIVE PROFILE

Water Resources Sustainability in the Paradise of the Pacific: A Conversation With Hawaii State Representative Ryan I. Yamane

R

epresentative Ryan I. Yamane has served in the Hawaii House of Representatives since 2005. Representative Yamane brings a sociological perspective to his job, with a particular focus on land and water use, transportation, healthcare, consumer protection, and business as they apply to the community. He currently serves as the chair of the Water and Land Committee.

Under his tenure as Hawaii’s Water and Land Chairman, Representative Yamane successfully protected over 664 acres of Oahu’s treasured North Shore lands through conservation easement legislation, initiated a successful water package of 14 bills which will reform and improve water security and infrastructure throughout the state of Hawaii, and championed Hawaii’s recent wildlife trafficking law. Representative Yamane also serves as a member of the Consumer Protection, Energy, and Environmental Protection, and Ocean, Marine Resources, and Hawaiian Affairs Committees in the Hawaii State House of Representatives. During his 12 years in office, Representative Yamane served as the Chairman of the Transportation Committee, the House Health Committee, and the House Tourism and Culture Committee. Representative Yamane has dedicated himself to serving the people of Hawaii, as a volunteer with such organizations as the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Medical Reserve Corp.

Municipal Water Leader’s writer, Valentina Valenta, spoke with Representative Yamane about the unique role that water resources play in Hawaii’s special way of life, the

legislature’s recent landmark initiative to address water management issues, and Hawaii’s plan to protect water supply and quality for generations to come.

Valentina Valenta: Please give our readers an overview of the status of water resources in the state of Hawaii. What are the biggest challenges now and in the future?

Ryan Yamane: Hawaii is an archipelago state surrounded by water in the middle of the Pacific. Our precious water resources are vital to our special way of life and are also vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. We are fortunate to have pure, clean, fresh water in our aquifers, thanks to Hawaii’s porous lava rock and caprock filtering.

Hawaii’s water and land use originates from the ancient Hawaiian ahupua‘a system of land management, which identifies communities based on stream flow.

Ahupua‘a land boundaries extend from the mountains to the sea, following the rain runoff and stream flows. Water flows from the upland forest, down through the land to sustain agricultural growth, and deposits into the ocean.

Our challenge is to maintain this delicate ahupua‘a system as we face increases in population and temperature and decreases in rainfall and base stream flow. This is why the Hawaii State Legislature recently enacted policies to improve our state’s water supply: to ensure that clean, unpolluted water will continue to nourish our families and support a sustainable food supply.

Representative Ryan Yamane visiting Loko Waimaluhia, a 32-acre freshwater, flood-control, reservoir lake in Kaneohe's Ho‘omaluhia Botanical Garden.

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Municipal Water Leader

Valentina Valenta: As chairman of the House Water and Land Committee, you just led a water resources legislative initiative with 14 bills aimed at improving Hawaii’s management of water. What was the guiding set of principles or management theme that you followed in bringing this package to fruition?

flood zones and areas of expected sea level rise. We must protect the sustainability of our aquifers in order to continue our way of life in the islands.

Ryan Yamane: This year, the Hawaii State Legislature wanted to take steps to move our water protection initiatives through a comprehensive policy package that included provisions related to water management, water audits, hydroelectric, public-private partnerships, investment incentives, water infrastructure improvements, and the elimination of untreated discharge into our oceans.

As the chair of Hawaii’s House Water and Land Committee, my goal is to focus on the importance of water to sustain life, our economy, social relationships, and culture. This legislative package emphasizes water management as an important element of our state’s success and pursues water management policies as an integral part of the overall objectives of food and climate sustainability, energy production, disaster management, and conservation.

Ryan Yamane: To address climate change, this legislative water package incorporates water security, water reuse, publicprivate partnerships, and financial incentives for innovative infrastructure into Hawaii’s laws and policies. To secure our water resources, we passed legislation to encourage the state’s Commission on Water Resource Management to conduct water audits with the water utilities and the counties. These water audits will investigate water use and water loss and determine how our water is managed on a statewide scale, which will allow the state to forecast our future water supply.

We also authorized and financed a State Water Security Advisory Group as a two-year pilot program to seek public-private partnerships to fund water security initiatives throughout the state. Through a third law, we amended our Hawaii State Water Plan to establish a goal for all of our state and county buildings to use some form of reclaimed water by 2045, excluding drinking water and potable water use. Finally, we passed a law that will prohibit wastewater and raw sewage discharge into our ocean and state waters in the next 10 years.

Valentina Valenta: You have written on the topic of climate change and water management. Please tell our readers the outlook for climate change affects on water resources in Hawaii.

Ryan Yamane: Hawaii is vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Hawaii has already experienced droughts and strong hurricane seasons. We have learned that we are susceptible to significant coastal flooding, devastating erosion, and severe damage to natural resources throughout our islands. With rising sea levels, Hawaii must reevaluate beach access, coastal zoning, and oceanfront developments.

We must consider relocating critical infrastructure outside

Valentina Valenta: How did your legislative initiative address the outlook for climate change?

Valentina Valenta: Another important component of the package was water resources infrastructure. Please describe the water infrastructure challenges you foresee and how the legislative agenda addressed those important needs.

Ryan Yamane: I have been passionate about investing in our state’s infrastructure improvement, and I pursued new opportunities to finance water infrastructure to best adapt to our state’s future climate change. This year, we

Representative Ryan Yamane with Hawaii's ocean enforcement agency, protecting Hawaii's marine wildlife in Maui.

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were able to enact a law to establish a green loan program for the purposes of water infrastructure improvements.

This program makes water infrastructure upgrades more affordable for smaller landowners. My legislative colleagues were also able to expand laws that will enable the construction and use of hydroelectric power facilities on agricultural land. Finally, we were able to finance and improve county-level irrigation systems for rural communities on our neighboring islands.

Valentina Valenta: Dam safety often gets a lot of attention and perhaps too few resources. Your legislative package addressed dam safety. How did you deal with those issues?

Ryan Yamane: Thanks to a recent constitutional amendment, the people of the state of Hawaii have authorized the legislature to provide special-purpose revenue bonds for the improvement, upgrade, repair, and maintenance of our state’s dams and reservoirs. Using this new authority, we recently passed four laws that will issue these bonds to fund over $17.1 million in loans through private investments to improve the safety of dams and reservoirs throughout the state. We also successfully identified four statewide dam and reservoir improvement projects that would have direct positive effects on their communities by providing water for irrigation, sustainable food production, or economic development.

Valentina Valenta: Flood and storm risk resilience affects many parts of our nation. An island state must feel those risks quite profoundly. Please tell us about the outlook for resilience in Hawaii and how you and the committee addressed those challenges in legislation.

Ryan Yamane: Like many states throughout the country, we face the threats of storms, floods, and other natural disasters. As a disaster responder, I emphasized policies to identify and strengthen vulnerable coastal areas, infrastructure, and natural resources as we adapt to climate change. Hawaii is the most isolated landmass in the world, so our storm resilience is vital for our survival.

This means that we must be a leader in water reclamation, water management, and aquifer protection. Our 14-bill legislative water package was a significant step in the right direction toward our adaptation to climate change, but we must continue to pass even more vital policies like these to continue to reduce our vulnerabilities and build our resilience to the effects of climate change.

Valentina Valenta: How important is hydroelectric power in Hawaii, and how does the legislation address the opportunities?

Ryan Yamane: In previous years, Hawaii passed laws requiring all energy to be “clean energy” by the year 2045.

To meet this mandate, we must begin to diversify our clean energy output by expanding the use of hydroelectric power throughout Hawaii. Integrating Hawaii’s clean energy vision with the use of hydroelectric power will allow our state to become truly sustainable in energy and water use.

Valentina Valenta: How are you addressing the aquatic ecology in charting your path forward?

Ryan Yamane: One of the laws we passed as a part of the legislative water package prohibits the discharge of treated wastewater and raw sewage into our aquatic ecologies.

Hawaii has struggled with wastewater and raw sewage discharge and pollution in our ocean and state waters. I could foresee that this problem would likely grow worse as we encounter future sea-level rise and flooding. Instead of allowing this problem to continue, I wrote and introduced legislation that prohibits wastewater pollution in our waters and ensures that Hawaii has a clean and sustainable coastline.

This new law provides a transitional time of 10 years for private owners and governments to upgrade their wastewater infrastructure and sewage treatment plants before the discharge and pollution prohibition is enforced.

Valentina Valenta: The 14 bills in your water initiative are most impressive. Where do you go from here? What will need to be done in the future?

Ryan Yamane: This legislative package was a great first step; however, there is still more work to be done.

As we move forward, we are building alliances with nongovernmental entities, federal and county partners, and schools to help educate our communities about the need to invest in water protection. Water education is difficult in Hawaii because we are surrounded by it and blessed with pure, clean drinking water. However, we are acting now through our new policies to improve our water management and our water security before the resource is contaminated or depleted. We need to continue this successful momentum.

I hope to build an investment fund that can be used to finance public and private projects that protect, preserve, or purify our water. We also need to gain the support of our cities and counties to adopt similar water security and water management priorities, identify where we can limit water runoff, increase water security, and lead by example as excellent water stewards.

You can reach Representative Yamane at (808) 586-6150 or repyamane@capitol.hawaii.gov.

Kaneohe Bay. Photo courtesy of Danielle Bass, staffer with Office of Representative Ryan Yamane.

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SOLAR CUP: Metropolitan Water District Uses Sunshine and Water to Grow Future Engineers and Water Resource Managers

By Rebecca Kimitch

S

camping under the stars at Lake Skinner—a first-time experience for many—they gain personal insight on the value of watershed management.”

In addition, as part of the competition, the student teams must create a public service announcement, using video or social media, explaining why people should conserve water. This year’s theme was Conservation Rain or Shine.

“We get students thinking about water in ways they have never before,” said Solar Cup Coordinator Julie Miller.

tudents, boats, and the sun’s rays—the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has found a creative way to combine the three to help ensure the region’s water reliability long into the future.

For the past 14 years, Metropolitan and its 26 member agencies have sponsored Solar Cup, a solar-powered boat competition for high school students and the largest of its kind in the country. More than 10,000 students have participated in the program, inspiring future engineers, water resource managers, and conservationists and helping Metropolitan and the water industry build the workforce needed to produce smart solutions to our water supply problems for decades to come.

Through the program, teams of high school students from up to 40 high schools across Southern California spend seven months designing and building 16-foot, single-seat boats, powered only by the sun. Along the way, they are taught hands-on lessons in water resources, alternative energy development, and sustainability while they apply math, science, and engineering lessons they have learned in the classroom.

The competition culminates in May when the teams compete and camp over three days at Metropolitan’s Lake Skinner reservoir in the beautiful Temecula Valley of Riverside County.

They face off first in an endurance race, attempting to complete as many laps around a 1.6‑kilometer West Covina High School entry in the endurance race. course as possible in 90 minutes, and then in a 200-meter sprint race, in which the boats are powered by More importantly, Solar Cup requires students to solar power stored in batteries. think creatively and critically to find practical solutions to At first glance, solar-powered boating may seem engineering challenges and then put those solutions to use. like an odd way to teach students about water “We want to empower students to ask questions, find management, admits Metropolitan Education Manager answers, and lead one another,” Ms. Miller said. “In very Adrian Hightower. But the comprehensive program little time, we hope these students are going to be leaders in provides many opportunities for powerful lessons about our their careers and their communities. The more real-world water resources. Racing on Lake Skinner, a 1,400-surfaceopportunities and exposure they have, the better off we’ll all acre reservoir supplied by imported water, directly connects be.” students with Southern California’s drinking water supply.

The program begins with a few practical lessons. Teams “Students realize the supply’s distance from population start in the fall by building their boat hulls—an alien task centers and get lessons in the pumps, pipes, and canals for many students. needed to move water,” Mr. Hightower said. “They see “A lot of these kids have never even held a drill before, firsthand the value of powering their boats with clean or even a hammer. Some don’t know the difference between energy, rather than water-polluting gasoline. And, while a Phillips and a flat-head screwdriver,” Ms. Miller said.

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Municipal Water Leader

“Few schools have shop classes anymore, so many students will say ‘I’ve seen this on HGTV before, but I’ve never done it myself.’”

The students are then required to participate in two technical workshops at Metropolitan’s headquarters, where they receive intensive electrical, mechanical, and solar power training.

And then the fun begins. The teams are largely left on their own to figure out how to Student charging battery with solar panels. build the fastest, most efficient boat. Unlike in robotics competitions, where students are restricted in the materials they can use and how they use them, Solar Cup offers more flexibility.

“Here, you have much more freedom in what you can use and how you approach it. You are doing some pretty creative thinking and building. There is a lot of engineering involved,” said Glenn Yamasaki, a physics and engineering teacher at Downey High School and advisor to the school’s Solar Cup team.

The teams must decide not only which solar panels, batteries, motors, propellers, and other components to buy for their boats, but also how to arrange those components.

“There are a lot of right answers, and even more wrong

ones,” Mr. Hightower said. “That kind of learning is impossible in a classroom. In class, you might learn about ohms and circuits, but that doesn’t mean you can wire a boat to run. And it certainly doesn’t mean you can wire it to run fast.”

Because the Solar Cup competition unfolds over multiple days, students are also forced to problem solve under pressure. If a team’s boat breaks down or does not perform well in one race, students can hustle to assess what went wrong and fix it.

“You have to do troubleshooting right there,” said Downey High School senior Adriana Cardenas, 17. “It’s chaotic, but a good chaotic.”

Students don’t have total freedom in their design; there are some limitations. Perhaps the most restrictive limitation is budget. Rookie teams get $4,000 to build their boats, while veteran teams get $2,500, with funding provided through sponsorships from Metropolitan’s member agencies. In addition, boats are limited to 320 watts in their solar panels and face a handful of other technical restrictions.

Students work afternoons and weekends for months building the boats.

“These kids pretty much live and breathe this from January until the races in May. It’s a lot of work, but it’s such a great opportunity and a lot of fun for them. This is the kind of hands-on stuff they wouldn’t normally get to do. They certainly couldn’t do it without the support of Metropolitan. We would never be able to raise the money to work with this kind of stuff,” Mr. Yamasaki said.

Beyond the immediate learning, working those long, late hours gives students a sense of responsibility, added Miss Cardenas, who plans to study mechanical engineering at Cal Poly Pomona in the fall.

“We really felt like we were working for something. We felt like, we are committed to this, we have to follow through. And to see everyone else was in for the same outcome, working together as a team, that’s really bonding,” she said.

For more information about Solar Cup, visit www.mwdh2o.com/inthecommunity.

Rebecca Kimitch is a principal public affairs representative at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. She can be reached at (213) 217‑6450 or rkimitch@mwdh2o.com.

Students making last-minute adjustments.

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On the Air With the Desert Water Agency

T

he late Umberto Eco said, “If you want to use television to teach somebody, you must first teach them how to use television.” The Desert Water Agency’s (DWA) Ashley Metzger has learned to use television to teach people about water.

Each Thursday, Mrs. Metzger appears on News Channel 3 ABC’s noon newscast, which broadcasts to Palm Springs and the greater Coachella Valley area. The noon newscast gets about 6,000 viewers.

Mrs. Metzger notes, “It takes a good deal of time to prepare for each segment, but it is a very wise investment.”

GETTING ON THE AIR

The drought was a trending topic at the time the DWA began discussing a segment with the station. Conservation was a newsworthy item. The DWA capitalized on that situation by discussing with the station a recurring guest spot to highlight the DWA’s role as a public utility in the community. The DWA does not pay for the guest spot.

Mrs. Metzger wisely stated, “If you were paying for advertisements to be aired, it would be very expensive and it would never be as valuable as being part of news content.

People don’t often pay attention to commercials that are shown between news programming segments. When the news show is on, people are paying attention.”

The DWA has taken advantage of a valuable opportunity, but with the opportunity comes a required level of commitment. The DWA must reliably write a script and provide all the content, and the agency had to be available to appear at a time that the station was willing

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to slot. Weekends, mornings, and afternoons are typically harder for news stations to fill because they have slightly lower viewership, depending on the newscast. Every week, on Monday or Tuesday, Mrs. Metzger picks a topic and drafts all the talking points. The draft goes through an internal approval process at the DWA and is then sent to the station.

The DWA has been fortunate in that the station accepts whatever topic the DWA chooses to discuss.

Examples of topics that Mrs. Metzger has discussed on the news include the availability of the agency’s water quality report, conservation tips for the Fourth of July weekend, and State Water Board actions. Mrs. Metzger tries to make the segments timely and relevant for viewers, so that the station views the segments as fresh content. She explains, “It is important not to repeat the same five water conservation tips over and over again. I don’t want the station or viewers to feel that it is stale.”

The anchors at the news desk have access to all the talking points for each segment prior to Mrs. Metzger’s arrival at the station each Thursday. The segment is aired live, which can be daunting. Mrs. Metzger notes, “You really have to be confident and flexible when you are doing a live show. It is easier to be more strategic during a taped program. But doing a live interview has benefits—the interaction between the interviewer and the subject during a live interview can sometimes produce material that is spontaneous and more easily relatable to the viewers.” The segments are two and a half to three minutes long.

Municipal Water Leader

REUSING THE SEGMENTS TO REINFORCE THE MESSAGES

The news segments are also available for viewing later.

The DWA has received permission from News Channel 3 ABC to post the segments on YouTube, and the agency’s YouTube channel that has all the segments archived. The agency can also post the clips to its social media sites and to its website. In addition, the agency plays the segments on a monitor in its lobby so that visitors to the DWA can view them. The agency mainly selects evergreen clips that are continually relevant for viewers because they are not event or date specific.

One of the segments on the DWA’s YouTube channel is called “Drinking Water Quality.” In this segment, Mrs. Metzger deals effectively with questions that customers commonly raise about the quality of the DWA’s water supply. She helps consumers understand how letting water sit for a few minutes helps to diminish or eliminate the faint chlorine taste that some consumers notice, and she does an excellent job explaining the high quality of the DWA’s groundwater and surface water supplies.

In the segment titled “Use Your Meter to Check for Leaks,” Mrs. Metzger provides a useful customer tutorial on how homeowners can use their own water meter to check for leaks. The segment contributes to the drought relief strategy that relies on ratepayers’ incentives to keep their water bills low.

In yet another segment, Mrs. Metzger skillfully presents advice on saving water when washing cars. She explains the requirement to use a shut-off nozzle—a mandatory water conservation restriction—and shows the audience such a nozzle. She goes on to tell service area customers about the efficiency of having cars washed at special car washes engineered to recycle water. Such facilities can reduce water consumption by a few gallons per car; washing a car at home uses 50 or more gallons of water. The segment informs customers of DWA-sponsored coupons for car washes at efficient car washes. This kind of segment obviously helps consumers save water and deal with drought conditions. It also saves ratepayers money.

AN INVIGORATING APPROACH TO PUBLIC RELATIONS

Mrs. Metzger says, “The news team has been wonderful.

There have been times when I have come into the station for my regularly scheduled segment, and a reporter was doing a water-related story that day, so it made it very easy for the reporter to interview me on a hot topic or new development.”

Doing short television segments on water topics was Mrs. Metzger’s brainchild. She wanted to try something new, something other than commercials or print advertising. She explains, “I wanted people in our community to learn through fresh, new ways about the role

Municipal Water Leader

The Desert Water Agency’s Ashley Metzger on News Channel 3 ABC’s noon newscast with news anchor Jeff Stahl.

of the DWA in providing drinking water. By informing our families and businesses about different water topics every week, and being the spokesperson of that message, I think we are really connecting with the community. The viewers see that their water agency is focused on providing information and making a connection with them.”

This has been a groundbreaking idea and a great fit for the DWA. The agency is fortunate to have its own media market in the Coachella Valley. The valley is not as densely populated as other areas in the region, and multiple media outlets cover a small area. In other areas, however, radio may be a better fit, or newspaper columns could cover weekly question-and-answer segments between ratepayers and their water service providers. All these ideas are out-of-the box thinking. Water agency public relations professionals would be well served to think innovatively, as the DWA has. In the DWA’s opinion, the public appreciates it and is getting involved and communicating with their public agencies more than ever.

Recurring news segments are highly beneficial because it allows the agency to become a trusted source of information, and it gives the agency the opportunity to repeat and reinforce key messages. People in the community put a face with the agency and identify their water utility as a provider of education and great public service.

The Desert Water Agency is a nonprofit public agency and a state water contractor, serving a 325-square-mile area that includes parts of Cathedral City, outlying county areas, Desert Hot Springs, and Palm Springs. An elected five-member board sets policy and represents customers. For more information, please visit www.dwa.org. You can also reach Ashley Metzger at (760) 323‑4971 or Ashley@dwa.org. You can view the DWA’s news clips by searching “Desert Water Agency” on YouTube.

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